


it's always you

by golden_tragedy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Kind Of Graphic Violence?, M/M, and oc kind of loses it, cato dies, everyone except cato and oc are just mentioned, i just really love cato, katniss is like a minor character, oc really knows how to make an exit, the cornucopia scene where cato dies, there's four murders, vague mentions of stabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25426465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_tragedy/pseuds/golden_tragedy
Summary: "I've been training for the hunger games since I was a kid. I will win, and bring glory to my district. And I do love Elio, but it doesn't change that I am lethal. And hungry to win." Cato smiles at Caesar Flickerman. It's a strange smile. More like he's baring his teeth than actually smiling.Elio, watching the interview at home manages to knock back an entire bottle of whiskey.
Relationships: Cato/OC
Kudos: 3





	it's always you

**Author's Note:**

> Why did he ever let him go? The night before Cato volunteers, Elio holds on to him like he's a dying man and Cato is giving him air.
> 
> Oc's name was Leo first, so if there's a typo, let me know.

“You know if that was a real sword, you’d be dead?” Cato said, a hint of a smile on his lips 

“You know I was never good with swords,” Elio tosses back, panting as he lowers the wooden practice sword, and Cato does the same. “can we call it a day?”

Cato sighs, looking like he wants to protest, but then catches sight of Elio’s hands shaking-the way they always do when he’s starting to panic and nods.

And Cato is not kind, or sweet, or caring. But the hand slipping into Elio’s, squeezing tight, is everything he is not. They’re going to the roof, the sky orange because of the setting sun. 

“Cato, Cato, please. You can’t volunteer tomorrow, please.”

“I’ll make it.” he says, as calmly as if he is talking about the weather.

Cato’s skin is glowing golden in the dying light, but it’s playing second fiddle to the shadow looming over both of them. One that gets closer every second. 

“I know you will,” Elio whispers back, and in a way, it’s pathetic. But he’s beyond the point of caring, because Cato is his best friend and his fiancé, and he refuses to let him die on the Capitol’s whims and fancies.

“Don’t worry,” he says, and Cato doesn’t like unnecessary displays of affection, but he pulls Elio closer, settling his hands over his hips, pressing their foreheads together. “I’ll be back. Then we’ll get married and no one can stop us,”

“It’s not that simple, Cato! There will be consequences, you know that! Finnick! Haymitch!” 

“The Capitol favours District 2.” is all he says

“Cato-” Elio cuts himself off “if you’re really doing this, I assume you know we won’t be the same people we are right now if you volunteer.” when Cato nods, he continues “then answer a question for me honestly. Tell me what you’d be like if the Capitol wasn’t here, if the Games didn’t exist and you could do whatever the hell you wanted.”

Cato frowns at him. They’ve never thought about things like this, or talked about it, because all they know is the Hunger Games. He does answer, though.

“Killing’s all I know, but if I didn’t I think I’d like cooking.I’d have friends who weren’t assessing my weaknesses everyday, I’d have parents who cared about things other than glory to this District. I don’t have the option to fall in love, you know that. But if I could, it would be you.”

He raises Elio’s hand, planting a quick kiss onto the simple silver ring they both share. The mark of their engagement. 

“It’s always you,” he murmurs and Elio’s heart sinks and soars simultaneously. They could have had it all. everything they ever wanted. They could have had it all. 

They fall asleep in the same bed, so close together it’s as if Elio is a dying man and Cato is giving him air. When Elio wakes up, Cato is gone and the last thing he remembers is a soft whisper of ‘I’m sorry’  
~

“So, Cato,” Caesar Flickerman says “is there a special girl back home?”

“Not a girl, but yes. Someone is waiting for me back home.”

“Oh! What’s his name then?”

“Helios. Or Elio, depending on his mood.” Cato shakes his head, grinning “we’re engaged, actually.”

“That’s wonderful news! But why would you volunteer if you have such a brilliant fiancé?”

“Because I’ve been training for these games since I can remember. I will win, I will bring glory to my district. And I love Elio more than anything, but it doesn’t change that I am lethal. And hungry to win.”

Elio knocks back an entire bottle of whiskey in the span of that interview, and then another one before passing out. 

~

Cato could be coming home. He’s got the advantage. He has the Peeta boy in a headlock and Katniss doesn’t know where to shoot her final arrows.

Elio is peeking through his fingers, slightly drunk, and praying to a god he’s forgotten the name of, heart beating so fast it hurts. And then Cato is falling. Elio rises as he falls, a scream building in his throat as the mutts surround him. Cato fights for a while, trying to climb back onto the Cornucopia . Elio does not breathe for the entirety of that time.

He can make it. He can make it. He is a Career. 

But the wounds he got from the fight with Thresh slow him down as the camera zooms out so he can see his fiancé crying and pleading and then finally just whimpering as the hours drag on and the mutts tear into him, turning him into nothing but a vaguely humanoid shape covered in blood. There is no sign of the person Elio once knew. It keeps going on. Elio knows he fell sometime just after the sun fell, and the sun is now rising. His food starts to rise in his throat and when the camera zooms into Cato’s bloody face, and the way he’s sobbing as he mouths the word ‘please’, Elio throws up.

When Katniss fires off an arrow, killing Cato, killing his fiancé, Elio screams. He flings a vase off the table. Throws a chair at the TV. Collapses onto his knees, screaming until his vocal chords become hoarse and mute and useless, and in that moment he gains clarity. He has died. 

And he is bleeding, there is blood coming out of his heart, pouring out of his eyes and his wrists, and this time there is no Cato to bandage them and stitch up that hole in his chest.  
His mother runs in. Tells him to be normal right now, that he deserved better than Cato anyways. Elio throws the first thing that comes into his hand at her. 

He didn’t realise it was a knife, didn’t realise that his unerring aim would not fail him, even if his intention was not to kill. But there she is, blood pouring, mimicking him.

There are Peacekeepers who run in. They call him crazy and try to restrain him. They understand he is distraught. They will not kill him. They will cut out his tongue and turn him into an avox.

On President Snow’s orders, Elio is made to watch Katniss’s speech front row. Peacekeepers lock him into a chair and wheel him into her direct line of sight. He doesn’t hear the speech. He knows she didn’t write it. He keeps his gaze away from the Hanleys who are grieving together. 

He keeps it locked on Katniss, knowing full well how red and swollen his eyes are, how puffy his face is, how his hands still haven’t stopped shaking. He hates her. He hates her so much he can’t breathe. His chest tightens. Airways constrict. So much fiery loathing hits him that he can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe. can’t feel. She stares back at him, her eyes just as empty as his.

They meet later. Elio still strapped tightly into the chair. 

“Your name was the last thing he said,” she mutters

Elio’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker. He knows it’s a lie.

“It’s not. Before I shot him. He was saying your name.”

She waits for an answer and when he doesn’t give one, she turns away. Her hand is on the doorknob when Elio speaks.

“I will kill you.” he says, and she twists back around, watching him impassively. “I will kill you. I loved him. I will kill you.”

She glances at his bound hands and walks out. And then he is gone. They take him to the Capitol and they cut out his tongue. it is gone and he is gone. They take away his ring. he wants to beg that they let him keep it but he can’t and the operating table prevents him from getting on his knees and begging. 

His hands never quite stop shaking after that. 

They fit him into a uniform. White shirt, white pants and a cage over his mouth to appeal to some absurd Capitol fashion. He spends his days plotting murder, warming beds and filling up glasses of wine. Of all the things he’s forced to do, it’s the second one that truly makes his skin crawl, but he says nothing. He waits for his chance at revenge. Revenge that has now extended from Katniss to the Capitol, to President Snow.

A year later Katniss has taken the Capitol. Her arrow flies for Coin. Elio throws his knife straight through Snow’s neck.

Then through the chests of the boys who stand by Katniss. Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorn.

His aim is still as unerring as ever.

He will not give Katniss the satisfaction of killing her. He will break her as she has broken him. He turns away and walks.

He is going to the roof. She is chasing after him. but he has a head start. And he does not care what happens even if she catches him. He steps onto the ledge. 

He looks at the sky. It’s especially blue today, a few fat clouds rolling lazily along. There is a warm presence behind him and he can almost hear Cato calling to him, and so, looking up at the sky, and with a smile on his face, and with a single step forward, he returns home. he returns home to his fiancé. To his love.

To his Cato.

And thus, he is free.


End file.
